


My Mother's Eyes

by JetGirl1832, tomatopudding



Series: Friends Make Life A Lot More Fun [5]
Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Family, Gen, Kid Fic, Mother's Day, Mother-Son Relationship, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JetGirl1832/pseuds/JetGirl1832, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomatopudding/pseuds/tomatopudding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mother's Day is just around the corner, so of course Roger's father is back in town.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>May 13th, 1984</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Mother's Eyes

Contrary to what his mother thought, Roger remembered what it was like when his father still lived with them. Some of his earliest memories were of his father. He can vividly remember sitting on his father's lap, chubby toddler fingers resting on larger adult ones as they strummed through chords on the old Fender guitar. 

"C," his father would recite as he strummed, "E minor, E major, G."

He could even remember his very first day of school, his father had taken him. He remembered gripping his father's hand so tightly, staring at the sea of unknown faces, many looking as nervous as his own. His father had crouched down, looking deep into Roger's eyes with the softest smile Roger had ever seen. He didn't remember what exactly his father had said, but rather the warmth in his voice and how it contradicted so heavily with the extreme sadness in his eyes. 

A few days after that first day, Roger came home from school to find the house so much quieter than usual. There was no soft strum of guitar and the quiet rasp of his father's singing. There was no smooth hum of the mixer as his mother prepared dinner. At first he was confused, he looked all over the house but his father was nowhere in sight. So the next thing he did was go and ask his mother, if anyone would know it was her. 

All she would say was that his father was away. He was away and he would be back. For weeks, he asked every day and for weeks his mother have the same response. He was away and he would be back. By the time Christmas rolled around, he stopped asking. 

His mother didn't know that he remembered these events. She thought he had been too young and so Roger's father was not mentioned again for several years. But he was far from forgotten in Roger's mind, sometimes it was hard to keep it all to himself. Mark and Maureen had always been there to listen on those days when he just needed to talk about the man he admired and looked up to, who has abandoned him so easily. 

They were also the first people he told when his father suddenly reappeared in his and his mother's lives. 

Roger had been walking home from school by himself since fourth grade and now that he was in high school, it was no different. It was turning out to be a balmy May that year, the warmer temperatures having moved in earlier than usual. The battered Impala sitting in the driveway had been black once, but now looked more like a dull gray, with one smashed taillight and a bumper that had seen better days. It was a car that stirred vague memories for Roger of riding on his father's knee while he drove around the neighborhood. The soft murmur of low voices greeted him when he entered, punctuated with a familiar huffed laugh. 

"Mom, I'm home."

Roger dropped his backpack in the front hall and forwent toeing off his shoes in order to make it to the kitchen as soon as possible. 

His hair had more gray in it than Roger remembered and was slightly longer, but when he turned to face Roger, his eyes were the same as ever. For a moment he stood there in silence, as if he couldn't quite get his voice to work properly. His father was here, he was really here sitting in their kitchen, he couldn't really believe that this was actually happening.

"Oh," Roger squeezed out. His heart was thumping in his ears, "Hi."

"Hey there, rockstar."

“What’s going on here?” Roger looked at his parents.

"Your father's come back into town," his mother said stiffly, fiddling with the collar of her shirt. 

"For good," his father added, "the band," he hesitated, "has dissolved."

Roger couldn’t believe what he was hearing, after all this time and all the years of asking where he had been his father was back. There was a mixture of confusion and happiness that was driving Roger mad from the inside out as he took it all in. “Back for good?”

His father nodded his head in response.

"Roger."

With some trouble, he tore his gaze away from his father, startled by the sheer exhaustion in his mother's voice. 

"He won't be staying here," she continued, "We've been separated for a long time and now that he's easier to get a hold of," she glanced in his direction and Roger's father looked away, "the divorce can be finalized."

"I've got a little apartment a few miles from here," his father said, drawing Roger's attention again. 

"Can I come over?"

The words were out of Roger's mouth before he could think about it and his breath hitched when he saw his father's eyes light up. 

"If it's alright with your mother."

"Of course."

It was the way his mother said those words that gave Roger pause. He recognized the tone as one that hadn't been present since right after his father had left. It had been just the two of them for so long now that Roger could read the subtle emotions that played across his mother's face. 

She was worried about something, but he couldn't tell what. 

\----------

He’d been spending a lot of time with his father, until then he hadn't realized just how much he missed having him around. His mother, on the other hand, was getting more and more despondent, sinking into the same lethargy he remembered from his early years. 

“I don’t get it,” Roger complained to Maureen, “I mean, he’s my dad and he’s a part of my life, you know?”

“How much have you been hanging with your old man?” asked Maureen, snagging a french fry off of Roger’s plate.

“He’s been teaching me some of his songs,” answered Roger, eyes alight, “and I’ve even been doing some composing!”

“You’re such an idiot,” Maureen sighed.

“Huh?”

“She’s worried,” explained Maureen in a patient voice, like scolding a child, “he hurt her, you know? And then he comes back like nothing ever happened and you’re all over him like moss on a rock! She thinks you’re going to leave with your father the next time her skips out, and you know that he will skip out at some point.”

Roger stared down at his plate and the half-eaten burger, suddenly not hungry, “Shit.”

\--------------

When the smoke alarm went off, Roger cringed. When his mother stepped sleepily into the kitchen, he was up on a chair, poking at the smoke detector to try to get it to just turn off already.

“Roger? What’s going on?”

Finally turning off the incessant beeping, Roger looked sheepishly at the pan full of circles of burnt batter, “It’s Mother’s Day. I wanted to make pancakes.”

After a long moment of silence, his mother burst out laughing.

“Oh, Roger, you’re hopeless in the kitchen.” 

Roger felt his face get warm with embarrassment.

“Tell you what,” his mother said with a fond smile, “why don’t we try doing this together?”

She guided him through making a fresh batch of batter, as he’d forgotten baking powder the first time around. While his mother manned the pan, Roger prepared the table and poured out two big cups of milk. They both liked their pancakes the same way, with a thin layer of butter and slathered in maple syrup. 

They ate in comfortable silence, accompanied only by the clink of silverware against ceramic plates and the squirting noise of the syrup bottle. 

“I love you mom,” Roger blurted out, eyes on his plate, “I won’t leave. I mean, with my dad. I’m not going anywhere.”

He reached across the table to grasp her hand where it sat beside her plate. Even with his gaze downcast, Roger could see her smile from the corner of his eye.


End file.
